Horizon Europe - What's New

Financing from the European Union is still needed to foster the development of energy storage in Europe, and EASE is actively involved in the shaping of funding programmes through its project management team. In 2018, EASE engaged with a wide range of stakeholders and got involved in different platforms to bring energy storage as a key topic in the next framework programme of the Commission: Horizon Europe.

Horizon Europe is the European Commission’s proposal for a €100 billion research and innovation funding program of seven years (2021-2027). This new programme will be launched in 2021 with the aim of boosting research and innovation and will replace Horizon 2020, which was the biggest research and innovation programme of the European Union with nearly €80 billion in funding, available from 2014 to 2020.

Horizon Europe programme has three objectives: Supporting the creation and diffusion of high-quality knowledge; Strengthening the impact of R&I in supporting European policies; Fostering all forms of innovation and strengthening market deployment.

Horizon Europe will consist of three pillars: Open Science, Global challenges and industrial competitiveness, Open Innovation.

The second pillar contains five clusters and particularly relevant for EASE is the “Climate, energy and mobility” cluster, since “Energy Storage” is one of its 9 topics. Within the same cluster, topics such as “Energy systems and grids”, “Communities and cities”, “Smart mobility” and “Clean transport and mobility” also prove to be interesting as they envisage a role for energy storage.

EASE welcomed the European Commission’s proposal to invest €15 billion in the “Climate, energy and mobility” cluster.

The envisaged starting date for Horizon Europe is 1 January 2021.

EASE hopes to achieve great results within the programme: Horizon Europe is an instrument that the European Commission provides to organisations and individuals to tackle major energy challenges while supporting their work through the financing of infrastructure projects and internal R&D. The access to a wide European network gained thanks to the participation in the consortium fosters business opportunities, creates synergies with other industries and enables public and private partnerships. Moreover, it represents an opportunity to influence policy-making through the development and sharing of research and knowledge.

Overall, the participation in EU-funded projects is a great added value for businesses of any size and EASE is proud to support its members and facilitate their access to these funds.